Who Does Gates Fund for "General Operating Support"?

05/26/2015 12:07 pm ETUpdated
Dec 06, 2017

On its website, the Gates Foundation makes it clear that it often initiates contact with organizations to apply for specific grants and that it does not fund what it does not consider a Gates Foundation "priority."

The assertiveness of the Gates Foundation in funding its approved version of education reform takes on head-tilting meaning when one considers the organizations that Gates funds "for general operating support."

That means that the Gates Foundation has decided to that it wants to keep such organizations in business. So, it gives them money to stay afloat, like Dad shelling out an allowance to the kids.

There is no greater opportunity for fiscal dependence on the Gates Foundation than for an organization to receive Gates money for general operating expenses- especially in the case of repeated operating support grants. Note also that the Gates Foundation pays its grants in installments, and it sure can become easy to get used to those regularly-arriving payments to help with salaries and other expenses.

Then comes the layer of dependence known as being part of the Gates-endorsed, corporate reform "in crowd"- an open door to additional fiscal and political opportunities for those willing to travel the route of test-score-driven education privatization.

On the Gates "awarded grants" search engine, the keywords "general operating support" yielded 1000 results. Some of these are duplicates, and many are outside of the field of education.

Let us consider Gates' grant payouts to education-styled organizations, especially those that have received more than one Gates-directed, operating-support grant or that have received the larger operating-support grants in the last few years.

Let's start with Gates operating support to charter schools and related organizations.

Two of the largest Gates grants toward charter schools were for $3 million each, one in June 2014 and one, in June 2012, to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (total $6 million).

The largest single grant was for $5.5 million, to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), in November 2007.

In October 2009, NAPCS received $500,000 that was more to the point: "to provide general operating support for continued growth of the charter industry." NAPCS's first Gates grant for operating support was for $50,000 July 2006.

In November 2014, Gates paid $199,767 to the Puget Sound Educational Service District "to support the development and implementation of and to provide back-office support and operations support services for public charter schools in Washington state." Also in Washington state and receiving Gates money for operations was the Cesar Chavez Public Policy Charter High School ($9,700 in October 2008).

Other notable corporate reform entities receiving Gates money for operating support include Common Core State Standards (CCSS) mouthpiece, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, with an established Gates-money operating-support relationship in the form of three grants, and all after CCSS made its June 1010 debut: $500,000 in June 2011; $1 million in April 2013, and a fresh infusion of $1.1 million in April 2015.

The Fordham Institute is inextricably connected to the Fordham Foundation, which had $52 million in total assets at the end of 2013, according to the Fordham Foundation 2013 990. So, taking operating support from Gates for the Fordham Institute appears to be a matter of taking the cash because the cash was offered.

Political alliance cement in the name of "We'll be able to do so much more."

In seven states and DC, Teach Plus actively promotes both CCSS implementation and the message to "opt in" with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test. It even has a survey showing that Massachusetts teachers want PARCC over the state MCAS.

Why, it would be quite the Gates oversight not to dole out multiple millions to keep Teach Plus going.

That noted, no organization comes close to receiving the amount of Gates funding just to keep the doors open as does Education Trust.Since 2002, Ed Trust has received $31.4 million from Gates in the form of eight grants.

Gates also pays operating support to former West Virginia governor Bob Wise'sAlliance for Excellent Education (AEE). Interestingly, Gates did not send the big money to AEE until after there was a CCSS: $500,000 in July 2003; $2.5 million in October 2012 and $3.5 million in August 2014. On its site, AEE describes itself as "a respected advocate for the Common Core State Standards."

An organization new to me on the Gates allowance gravy train is the Minnesota-based Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network. PIE Network is a Who's Who of corporate reform; its board of directors includes Cynthia Brown from the Center for American Progress (CAP); Christine Brown from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) (in Gates' backyard of Seattle, Washington); Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children (SFC); Kati Haycock of the Education Trust; Jeb Bush right hand, Patricia Levesque of the Foundation for Excellent Education (FEE); Deborah McGriff of NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF), Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute, and Jamie Woodson of the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE).

On its 2011 990, PIE Network's greatest expense was some "spring executive meetings" described as "candid, closed-door meetings that are held to connect leading innovators with their peers in other states, enabling the spread of ideas and information about school reform." The description of PIE Network intention continues in another section:

The annual policy summit brings together the nation's leading education innovators in an intimate setting designed to foster discussion and build relationships. Network members are able to bring several guests from their state, which allows them to build powerful teams that can tackle reform challenges. In 2011, guests included state department of education officials, including a state schools chief.

An effort to weave corporate reform into the fabric of state departments of education.

On its 2013 990, PIE Network includes no such "candid" details about its operations.

Another curious Gates general operating support grant was this June 2014 grant for $24 million to the Bloomberg Family Foundation. What strikes me is that three months later, in September 2014, the Bloomberg, Walton, and Broad Foundations decided to finance pro-corporate-reform blog, Education Post- along with a mystery donor.

In my post dated May 18, 2015, I take issue with Garcia's unabated plan to accept Gates funding for NEA despite her April 25, 2015, Network for Public Education (NPE) public statement indicating otherwise.

And in this current post, I close with an observation regarding Gates' doling out millions to favored "education" organizations for general operating support: